It influenced the taxonomic structure of Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot's immensely influential Encyclopédie, and is considered by Bacon's biographer-essayist Catherine Drinker Bowen as a pioneering essay in defence of empirical philosophy.



So, just as Tennis is a game of no value in and of itself, but of enormous utility in that it develops a quick eye and a body able to put itself in any situation, so, in mathematics, collateral, intervenient use is no less worthwhile than principle and planned use.